When you're 30, there aren't too many things to get overly excited about. You've pretty much seen and done the things you want to do, and with exceptions, you're set and ready to die.
So when you do hear about something so completely random and awesome existing, your hopes irrationally explode in anticipation.
I'm of course, talking about the trailer to Showgirls 2.
Before we get into it though, let me fill in a little backstory to the magic that was seeing Showgirls...
Friday night, September 22, 1995. A date marked on my friends' and mind calendar for awhile. Opening night for Showgirls. Back then, in the infancy of the Internet, NC-17 movies such as this one had a little more fanfare behind it. Sure, there were AOL chatrooms to trade pics in, but unless you had a smoking 14.4 modem, that would take hours for your porn fix.
No, NC-17 movies still had the free reign to titillate.
And so that's how we found ourselves at the theater that night. It didn't seem strange to us. We were suburban raise, and an event such as this one, no matter how stupid or vanilla it would later turn out to be, still held an aura of mystique for us.
What we did find a little strange is that we kept running into every older male we knew in the parking lot of the theater. The conversation usually went like this:
Us: "Hey Mr. Smith, father of one of my friends, what are you doing at the movie theater tonight?"
Elder Male: "Oh, I decided to come out to the movies. Sure I haven't been to a movie theater in over 15 years, but tonight the idea simply struck me. What are you boys here to see?"
Us: "Showgirls, duh."
Elder Male: "Showgirls, eh? Is that some French film? Sounds interesting. Mayhaps I'll purchase a ticket for that one as well."
And so on.
Anyway, we went in, watched the terrible movie, tittered on at all the racy, stilted sex scenes with a grown up Jesse, and left. Fulfilled? Unfulfilled? Who cares. It was something to do. Once in the parking lot, we got in my car, the sweet '88 Mercury Sable (RIP), and noticed one of the Elder Males (let's refer to him as Mr. Smith from here on out) we'd seen earlier get into his car. As we pulled out, we happened to see him drive over to a pay phone in the parking lot.
Pulling one of those Rockford Files moves where he got close enough to the phone to pick up the receiver and dial without getting out of his car we knew 2 things immediately:
A. He was awesome because he pulled that maneuver;
B. This was a discreet telephone call he was making.
Now, we knew Mr. Smith to be married; the friends I was with even went to school with a his children. So the plot thickened when after 10 minutes of being on the phone (you bet your ass we staked him out. I even referred to myself as Richard Dreyfuss.
Repeatedly.
(Don't you dare suggest I would have been cooler back then to refer to myself as Emilio Estevez either. Yeah, I know he was in the Brat Pack. Yeah, I've seen the Breakfast Club. And yes, I knew Always existed. But I have 2 words for you:
He was motherfucking Hooper in Jaws.)
Mr. Smith casually hung up, turned his car around and drove in the complete opposite direction of his home. Down the way toward the seedy side of suburbia. (How you can tell you're in a seedy part of suburbia. There are places that are open 24 hours/day, and there's a lot of used car lots.)
You know what happens next.
Of course we followed him.
I'd love to finish this story with us pulled up in a dark alley watching him go all Bad Lieutenant on some woman he found in the parking lot of a bar. Or picked up a guy on the corner, drove a block, and let the guy out before revving his engine toward home. But nothing like that happened.
Well, not really.
We followed him to an indistinct neighborhood and watched him pull into the driveway of an indistinct house. And we left. Could we have staked it out and seen this thing through to the end? Sure. But that's where we get into Another Stakeout territory, and none of us wanted a Rosie O'Donnell moment.
That didn't stop us from creating the sordid story of what did go down in that neighborhood house. Remember, we were 22. And we were on a Stakeout high.
What does any of this have to do with the trailer for Showgirls 2?
Very little. I just didn't want you to be so completely underwhelmed when you finally clicked on the link. You see, I just watched it and...yeah. It makes Showgirls look restrained. Please be forewarned: it's graphic with plenty of nudity. Right at the beginning too.
I can't imagine the movie exists and am assuming Geoff Schaff is simply made up - like Alan Smithee but when a director REALLY doesn't want to be known.
Still, I guess technically possible this is a real honest to god film. And to that I say - eh. I'm not 22 anymore.
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